Month: February 2011

Would someone please….anyone in the world…tell me why it is that we can never find our shoes.  And when I say “we” and “our,” I mean “THEY”  and “THEIR.”  And when I say “THEY” and “THEIR,” I am talking about my KIDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have a back door that we always use.  Always.:

And when you walk in the door you see our mudroom (my very favorite room in the house):

And in this precious mudroom, I have placed bins.  Some even have a personalized tag on them:

In a perfect world, a little person would enter, remove shoes and put them in a basket that has their name on it.  Then, amazingly, when it is time to leave again and this little person needs a pair of shoes…..pull out the basket and THERE would be shoes.  It would be so neat.  It really would.

Instead, we roam the house whining about where our shoes are and how “I did put them in the basket.  I did!”

Liars.  Little liars.

Another question:  Why would I let my girls sleep in my bed with me when Josh is gone?  I know it is a king sized bed and should be plenty of room.  It’s not.  I got kicked and rolled on more times than I care to recall last night.  This afternoon a nap was in order.   Mack said he wasn’t tired, and I believed him.  He slept in his own bed last night–alone.  So I sent him to his room to play and told him not to bother me while I laid on the couch for a bit.  He agreed.

Then, he must have gotten hungry.  I woke up to him at the island with a few trucks and a bowl of peanuts.

He is so funny to  me.  He also told me today that he liked playing in that thing yesterday at “Trick-Play.”  I didn’t know what in the world he was talking about…and then it hit me….he was saying “Chick-fil-A.”

This morning he was asking Ruby if she remembered really liking trees.  She said, “Yeah, I used to.”  I looked at her confused, and she told me, “He is saying that I used to like cheese.”

Oh, ok.

 

Mack is such a nice little boy. We get to hang out by ourselves each Tuesday and Friday, and I really love our time together. I have noticed that over the past few months he has gotten so good at telling us how much he loves us. I sure hope he keeps that up throughout his whole life.

Like today at lunch he looked at me and said, “Isn’t this a great time we are having together?”

On a walk at PawPaw’s house he said, “Mom, you sure are a great mom to take such care of us kids.” He then added, “And Dad sure is a great dad, isn’t he?”

The other day he walked Josh to the back door and told him he loved him, gave him a hug and a five and then closed the door. He looked at me and said, “Daddy is just the greatest Daddy, isn’t he?….” Then he let out a big sigh like the thought of such a great Daddy was just too much to take in.

I love that Mackie-boy.

 

We have had some fun deliveries over the past week!  Sweetie and Paw Paw sent some candy and cards.  PawPaw sent candy and cards, too.  GG sent cards and activity books with markers.  Pep sent fun coloring books and crayons with cards that had a picture of each kid on them…so sweet!   I have GOT to take a picture of the cards and post them on here.  (I can’t right now though.  I should be in bed!!!)

Anyway, it has been a fun-filled week, to say the least.  Last Friday I had “Snowman Snuggles” with Molly at her school.  We had breakfast together, and she gave me a cute snowman she made at school.  She also sang a sweet song with her class.  She answered some questions about me in a book, too.  She said that I was “23 years old,” and I just shook my head like she was exactly right!  She said my favorite food is “mall food” and that her favorite thing to do with me is get a slushee together.  I don’t drink slushees though, so I guess she means she likes when I get her one!  That girl is so funny.

As you will soon find out, this is Molly’s new smile.  Oh dear.  Let’s hope this phase doesn’t last too much longer.  She has beautiful brown eyes that I would like to capture in a picture!

 

I got to help plan the class Valentine’s party for Molly’s class on Friday afternoon.  I also brought cupcakes for Ruby’s class.

Ruby said that they were good and that her friends all liked them.  Maybe we need to make them for our HOME school class on Monday.  🙂 I think the teacher would like that very much.

Molly and her friends came in from recess to a decorated room.  Their faces were so funny as they each walked through the door.  And by the way, take a look at the boys clothes…were they rolling in the mud?!  Probably so….

See?

We had the kids trace their hands and cut them out and then stick the hands on each side of the lotion with an “I love you” for their mom.

The kids got to decorate a sugar cookie with fun icing and sprinkles.

Pinata!

Waiting patiently for when the candy dumps out!

Not so patient when the candy dumped out….

I sure do love this persistent, sensitive, silly, kind-hearted cutie-pie!

 

We left school and went to church to set up for our adult Sunday School party.  The kids were jealous because we were going to be playing Wii.  We ate pizza and salad and desserts, looked at everyone’s wedding album and played Wii.  It was such a fun time.  I could have stood to talked to people more and dance less, but I couldn’t help myself.  It was so fun!!!!!!!  And quite a workout.  I am so out of shape.  Maybe I should ask for  Wii for my birthday???  I don’t have any pictures of the actual singing and dancing because I was too busy dancing!  Josh did take some video, which is hilarious.  If I ever learn how to post the video, I will.  Don’t hold your breath though.

The wedding albums were so fun.  It’s rare after ten or more years of marriage to have your wedding album out with all of your friends.  We laughed at how young some of the couples looked getting married….like, some were 12 years old, I am sure.  Others had more hair.  Some of us were really tan.  All of us look more rested then than we do now, that is for sure!  People drove off in antique cars, cadillacs, and corollas.  There were lots of kissing pictures.  Most of us were married in the time frame when albums were very traditional.  “Look, here’s the bride with all the bridesmaids.  Now here is the groom with all the bridesmaids.  Oh and here’s the bride AND groom with all the bridesmaids.”  What in the world is up with that?!?  By far, the funniest story was of Dana and Scott.  They went to Jamaica to get married.  They needed two witnesses and couldn’t find anyone….so the lady doing her hair found some for them!!

I love how these people are clapping for them like they really are happy for them and wish them the best.  Not sure if you can see the tattoo on the arm or not….she also has on a skirt that barely covers her behind.  Oh so funny!!!!!!!!!!

I hope you are having a nice, love-filled weekend.  We enjoyed lunch at the mall (so our house can be shown), ice cream and reading books together.  I also baked the kids Sunday School teachers some cookies so we can tell them how much we LOVE them and how they serve week after week.  I hope you are loving on some of your favorite people!

I love God’s Word.  The past 8 or 9 months have been the most interesting times, in that Josh and I have never been so unsure of the future.  For the most part, we have lived in such a way that we sort of kept things “under our control,” or so we thought.  Not to say we were never caught by surprise by certain events of life.

We were.

“Josh, I’m pregnant…again…Ruby is only 6 months old!!!”

I remember sitting in the realtors office when we signed papers on our first home on our second anniversary and looking at each other like, “What are we doing?”

For the most part, though, our life has been very simple, very safe.  We didn’t need “mountain-moving faith” because nothing needed moving.  All went just about as well as it could have. Nothing tragic has happened over these past months, but we have been stretched in ways we never thought about…more inward than outward, though I think outward is coming.  I love that at the beginning of our journey I was all about the outward stuff.  “OK, God.  We’ve heard you clearly.  Now, just keep speaking.  Sell our house, move us back, all will be back to normal.  Sounds like a plan.”  Not so.  The Lord puts such priority on His inward work, the changing of our heart, the molding of our soul to be all His.  I’m not saying I’m there…I am saying that I am actively on the journey.  Some days are beautiful.  Some days are horribly ugly.  What I am finding out about these oh, so uncertain days is that His Word and His Spirit are all I have.  They really are.  I have never been quite so aware of this truth.

He isn’t DOING anything I am asking Him to do as far as our circumstances are concerned.

He IS SPEAKING to me through His Word.  He is reminding me of Who He is, of Whose I am.  It’s all I have these days in the way of direction or guidance.

I’ve been participating in Beth Moore’s scripture memory team this year, and I am enjoying it so much.  She talked on her blog how crazy  that is was February already.  January was gone in a snap, but she said that we were at least two more scripture verses the richer because of it!  So true.  The days came and went; His Word is eternal, and I have been blessed as I meditated on it and memorized it and used it many days when I needed a reminder of Who God is and what I should do during those days.

Here are my three verses so far this year. (We choose a new one on the 1st and 15th of each month.)

Jan.1: Seek the Lord and His strength; Seek His face continually.”  Psalm 105:4

Jan. 15: The Lord is my Light and my Salvation; Whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the Defense of my life; Whom shall I dread?”  Psalm 27:1

Feb. 1: Praise the Lord!  How blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commandments.  He will not fear evil tidings; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord.  Psalm 112:1,7

I can’t wait to add a new one next week.  The challenge is, obviously, to keep going back and meditating on previous verses as you add on month after month.  I’ll keep you posted!!  In the meantime, the question is worth evaluating:  What’s on your mind?

Today is one of those days when I find myself daydreaming about what it might be like if the girls were both in public school and Mack was in a three or four day preschool class, and I could just go for a walk–a long, nice walk.

It’s extremely hard to justify throwing in the towel on homeschooling and spending so much time with the kids and spending nearly $200 a month (that we do not have) to just go for a walk…..

but I can daydream about it.

And then I can shake myself back into reality and sit down with Ruby while we bang our heads against a wall trying to learn how to count by 10’s, starting with a number other than 10….oh, the joy.

In the playroom earlier:

Mack: “OK.  I’m the preacher at the wedding.  Kristy–Do you have an awful husband?”  (of course he meant something about a LAWFUL husband)

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Tonight, we were reading a devotion and reading about the people of a Middle Eastern country where women are treated badly.  I was telling Ruby how sometimes women don’t get to go out into public or get healthcare or an education.  She had a look of disgust on her face.  She may have even said, “I hate those men.”  We talked about how we should pray for them…not hate them.  I had also mentioned that if people share Christ and get caught, they could go to prison.  A few minutes after that Mack said in a serious tone, “I don’t want Daddy to go to prison.”  I told him quickly that Daddy wasn’t going to prison.  His response?  “Oh, ok.  Thanks.”  And Ruby, when she prayed, was quite passionate and said, “Dear God,  I just pray for those women to not feel bad and that if those men are bragging, saying, ‘Yeah–we get healthcare and get to go out and stuff,’ then just let them know You!  Let them know that in the Bible it says to Do unto others as you would have them do to you.”

Well, Amen.

I have missed several hilarious quotes from the kids lately because I haven’t immediately written them down!  I have to get better at that.  They are too funny to forget.

My, oh my!  I cannot believe that it is really February.  Before we know it, the sun will actually consistently shine again, flip flops will be a necessity, along with popsicles and sunscreen.

Ok, maybe I am getting a little ahead of myself.

VALENTINE’S DAY!  It’s on its way, and I love it.  I do not know why, but I just love all the tacky decorations and candy and hearts and flowers.  Oh, so fun.

Here are some of the things we have going on in prep for V-day:

-Making Valentine bags to take to school to collect Valentines from our friends in (pictures to come).

-Baking cookies for our wonderful Sunday School teachers (again, pictures to come).

– A Sunday School class party where we get to all bring our wedding albums!  And there will be Wii set up for those not interested in looking at wedding albums.

-Preparing for Molly’s class party…I found a cute, cute craft idea!  Can’t wait to show how it turns out.

-Putting candy in bags for Valentines to hand out to our friends at school:

We put these together (cute card thanks to littlebutterbeans.com) one afternoon.  It was hilarious.  Mack has a hard time not eating any piece of candy in sight.  He made it through though because I restricted him to the left over candy canes from Christmas.

Molly took this picture, which is proof that when the fun candy part was over, I was deserted to finish up all alone.

Not to change the subject, but we also started a new method of snacking at our house.  All three of the munchkins eat a lot.  They ask a NUMBER of times each day if they can have a snack.  “Can I have a snack now?”  or  “I just made my bed…can I have a snack?”  or  “I ate all of my lunch…can I have a snack?”

I gave each of them two baggies.  I filled one with goldfish.  I put a fruit roll up and some vanilla wafers in another one.  I explained that these are the snacks for the day.  They can eat them any time they want, pretty much, but I did give them a good idea about how they might most benefit from the snacks being spread out throughout the day.  Ruby seemed to totally get it.  She ate her muffin and blueberries for breakfast and then went upstairs to get started on Spelling Bee words.  Molly ate THREE muffins and her strawberries and went upstairs to get her school stuff out.

Mack stuffed his banana in his mouth, left the muffin and decided on an early snack: